After years of waning global influence, the World Bank has attached itself to the climate crisis like a patient on life support. Facing a crisis of legitimacy over its failed economic policy proscriptions and long track record of boondoggle projects, the aging institution is attempting to give itself a makeover. No longer is it just the Bank whose “dream is a world free of poverty.” Now it is the Bank that can solve the climate crisis. The facelift includes a $2 billion portfolio of trust funds that channel carbon finance – money used to buy cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from projects in developing countries – from polluting industrialized countries in the global North to some of the most ecologically destructive industries in the global South.
This report exposes the World Bank for what it is – and names it as such – a “climate change profiteer.” The World Bank irresponsibly and recklessly continues to perpetuate the world’s dependence on climate-altering fossil fuels while profiting from carbon trading, which is a dubious remedy to climate change.